Devotionals

Spurgeon's Daily Devotionals - Evening Edition

January 19

"Then opened he their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures." - Luke 24:45

He whom we viewed last evening as opening
Scripture, we here perceive opening the understanding. In the first work he has
many fellow-labourers, but in the second he stands alone; many can bring the
Scriptures to the mind, but the Lord alone can prepare the mind to receive the
Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus differs from all other teachers; they reach the ear,
but he instructs the heart; they deal with the outward letter, but he imparts an
inward taste for the truth, by which we perceive its savour and spirit. The most
unlearned of men become ripe scholars in the school of grace when the Lord Jesus
by his Holy Spirit unfolds the mysteries of the kingdom to them, and grants the
divine anointing by which they are enabled to behold the invisible. Happy are we
if we have had our understandings cleared and strengthened by the Master! How
many men of profound learning are ignorant of eternal things! They know the
killing letter of revelation, but its killing spirit they cannot discern; they
have a veil upon their hearts which the eyes of carnal reason cannot penetrate.
Such was our case a little time ago; we who now see were once utterly blind;
truth was to us as beauty in the dark, a thing unnoticed and neglected. Had it
not been for the love of Jesus we should have remained to this moment in utter
ignorance, for without his gracious opening of our understanding, we could no
more have attained to spiritual knowledge than an infant can climb the Pyramids,
or an ostrich fly up to the stars. Jesus' College is the only one in which God's
truth can be really learned; other schools may teach us what is to be believed,
but Christ's alone can show us how to believe it. Let us sit at the feet of
Jesus, and by earnest prayer call in his blessed aid that our dull wits may grow
brighter, and our feeble understandings may receive heavenly things.